★★ The end credits replay the Rage Against the Machine song that had famously closed The Matrix. While Rage was always only ever good for its guitar, the new version is a kidz-bop style shallow cover. Ironic that a song called “Wake Up” can put you to sleep; but credit where due – this is […]
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in December, 2018. “You’re a critic? What’s your favorite movie?” I’m asked this a lot, and I often suspect that people are looking for an obscurer answer than the one in my pocket. But it also feels like asking “what’s my favorite dream.” Although […]
★★ Steven Spielberg (without Tony Kushner) already made a musical. It was called Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In that film, anything went. In West Side Story (2021), nothing did. When the two leads aren’t there, the picture is occasionally tolerable. Like the original, the two leads are the least interesting pieces of […]
Dear Readers, I don’t talk enough about good movies. If you’ve been reading my hobby over the years, you know I have a penchant for negativity and occasional contrarianism. But apart from writing a Star Wars Prequels appreciation entry every few years, or an anniversary piece whenever possible, V for Verbatim can’t help but feel […]
★★½ Love Hard is an enjoyable, sweet, uplifting Christmas picture stemming from a silly premise and full of needless references to silly cultural questions outside it. It’s awful… yet I’m embarrassed to admit that I liked it. I don’t like reviewing movies like this. Not because I hate watching them, but rather because both romance […]
★★★ The moment DUNC was finished, I really wanted Part Two. That was the problem. It is a testament to the skill of Denis Villeneuve, the production crews, Hans Zimmer, and the sound producers to make such worlds, planets, environments, and surfaces come alive in a grandiose fashion that mirrors (albeit more by suggestion than […]
★★ The nationwide and global lockdown was one of the worst things that happened in this century. One of its victims was No Time To Die. To be sure, No Time To Die is a bad film, and would have been bad no matter when it was released, but as I argued just recently in […]
A new James Bond film is coming out. It will be the twenty-fifth film in the franchise, now nearing sixty years of age, and the last picture to star the sixth actor to have played 007. We may have reached a point where such a prospect no longer excites us. But just in case we […]
“Once more the Sith shall rule the galaxy! And… we shall have peace.“ I will never forget what my brother said when I showed him the Star Wars Prequels. “PEACE?!” he asked, incredulous. “I thought that’s only what good guys want!” It would be years later when I’d realize just how perfectly that remark struck […]
In A Few Good Men, adversarial parties to a court martial prove themselves capable of confronting part of the truth, but never all of it. My childhood owes a lot to this film. No, I’m not one of those kids who watched it in the ’90s and then decided from that moment onward that my […]
★★½ Entropic inversion and square symmetry – enabling the kind of review you can read forwards or backwards. I promised to keep this review short, since Tenet did all the talking and far too much of it. So you may not need more from me than just a concept-illustrating phrase. While the Sator Square is […]
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in March, 2019. ★★★★ You know what movies could benefit from more of these days? Violence. Not the kind where human beings are made of water balloons and discharge blood like fire hoses – the kind that’s disturbing, unnerving, difficult to witness and decidedly […]
★★★★ “Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement . . . that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from […]
This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in May 2019 for the 35th Anniversary of this film’s original release. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a masterpiece. It is a glorious fun-house roller coaster made by disturbed geniuses in perfect harmony with each other. Their goal – anything goes. That opening […]
“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. […]
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in May, 2018. The following article is subjective, deeply personal, and politically charged in ways that are sure to upset at least one person. It is that way perhaps for no other reason than because I will begin my celebration of Steven Spielberg by […]
This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in March 2018, as the second of three parts. Part I can be found here. In Part I we talked big picture construction – heroic virtue established by resistance to nihilism, representations of fear, and the condition of the Joker. For Part II, we’re going small. […]
★★ Two years ago, I saw Ready Player One. My feelings for that film went beyond professional appreciation. It touched a nerve the way no movie had in probably at least a decade before it. What I liked most about it was how true it felt to the experience of having a deep personal connection […]
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in June, 2016. Iron Man Three is my favorite film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yes – that one. It’s the rare threequel that’s better than both predecessors on merit, action, character, and closure all in one. It’s one of the best in the […]
★ There are a total of eight songs in the narration of Frozen II. Exactly one of them actually tells a story. That’s the pithy version of why it pales in comparison to the first. Think about how many songs in the original Frozen told the story. “Do You Want to Build a Snowman,” “Love […]
This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in March 2018, as the first of three parts. Part II can be found here. Welcome to a new feature called “Cinematic Constructions.” My aim with it is to explore shared or contrasted themes, patterns, and characters in an auteur’s filmography. We tend to notice the […]
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in November 2017. Spider-Man is a duality. From one radioactive spider bite, an awkward, gangly wallflower of a science geek teenager suddenly acquired bullet-time reflexes, herculean strength, acrobatic agility, and a sixth sense. All that, as opposed to, say, cancer. Do you remember how […]
Welcome to the second annual “Oscars So Trite” feature. Another evening of sanctimony and cliché. How wonderful and extraordinary for the Academy to engage in the courageous act of patting itself on the back for another year of simply existing, making an occasional good movie or two. A red carpet ceremony with a who’s who […]
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in December, 2018. Sometimes obsessing over the issue of time will destroy your movie faster than time being a plot hole. Star Wars: The Last Jedi has this problem. Movies do funny things to our brains, specifically with our conception of time. One of […]
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in January, 2019. “The Oscars are coming!” That used to be exciting. Now it sounds like something a new Paul Revere should be saying while out of breath and on his way to a dumb rally. Yes, the Sun has once again made its […]
V for Verbatim 